Last of Us: Second Chances
by ArmyOfPenguins
Summary: Jenny was born at the beginning of the outbreak and was separated from her parents at a very young age. She sets out to find them, but her journey holds more than a few surprises for her. One, however, may give humanity a second chance.
1. Prologue

"It's time."

James looked up from the notebook that lay open on his lap. He'd been going over his notes and reading through one of the textbooks he'd purchased a month ago. He'd already graduated med school and completed a five year internship. The doctors he worked under during his internship praised his steady hands and his quick thinking. He learned fast and was able to assess a situation and make split second decisions. He'd been a surgeon for about 4 years now, but he liked to stay on top of his education. He knew that no amount of studying and reading textbooks could prepare him for everything he might encounter, but he also knew that he needed to keep up with medical advancements.

Martha noticed his blank stare. "It's time," she repeated. "My water just broke."

"Oh!" James exclaimed, slamming his notebook shut and throwing it on the couch cushion beside him. "I'll call Natalie!"

Natalie was James' sister. She lived just two houses down. James and Martha had arranged, some time ago, for her to come over to watch Eric, their two year old son, when the baby came. James took his cell phone from his belt clip and dialed Natalie's number.

"Hello, Natalie speaking."

"Nat! Hi, it's James."

"Jim! Is it time? That little one coming?"

"Yes, yes it is," he replied, referring to the baby as "it" since Martha didn't want to know the gender of the baby. She hadn't found out with Eric either. She said she liked the surprise. Personally, James didn't care one way or another if they found out the gender ahead of time, so he just let it be.

"Okay, I'll be right over!" Natalie exclaimed, barely finishing her sentence before hanging up the phone.

James chuckled. "You know, I think she's more excited about this than we are," he said to Martha.

Martha just smiled at him through the mask of discomfort that suddenly made its way across her face. She was a rather small and petite woman, standing at only 5'2" tall. She was thin, but she was fairly toned. She wasn't athletic by any means, but she stayed active even throughout both pregnancies. Her small frame just made her pregnant belly seem all the more exaggerated. She wore a light-blue, long sleeved maternity shirt that seemed about stretched to its limit. She also had a pair of gray sweat-pants, since most of her jeans no longer fit, along with a pair of white slip-on shoes. Her face was normally well defined and narrow with high cheek bones and big bright hazel eyes beneath shoulder length brown hair pulled back into a pony tail. James always teased her about looking like an elf. Now, however, her face was slightly rounded from the water she had started retaining during the pregnancy. Despite the discomfort from the onset of labor, her face still shown with a visible excitement. She was ready to meet their newest addition. Not to mention she was exhausted and just ready for the pregnancy to be done. They'd decided that two was a good number and didn't plan on having any more children. Both pregnancies were easy as far as pregnancies go. She didn't experience much morning sickness, but she just didn't think she could handle carrying around another kid for nine months. She wasn't so fond of having hands and feet jabbed between her ribs.

James was about six or seven inches taller and only slightly bigger. He was thin as well, but was better toned and had slightly more muscle mass. He was a runner (when he wasn't studying) and as such his legs were very well toned and his endurance was great. His face was slightly more rounded with less defined features. His eyes a dull blue-gray. His hair was a dark, dishwater blonde and was kept relatively short. Not too short, just short enough that he could easily tuck it all in the hair net he needed to wear while at work. He intentionally left it unkempt so he had a sort of beach bum look about him. He wore a pair of loose blue jeans and a plain gray t-shirt, his preferred type of outfit when he wasn't running or working. He'd just put on a dark gray zippered hoodie. It was a fairly warm September day, but there was still a little chill in the air.

After about five minutes, the doorbell rang. Without waiting for anyone to answer it, Natalie opened the door and walked in, huffing from having practically ran to James and Martha's house. She was a slightly heavier set gal, though she'd recently gotten into a more active lifestyle and strict diet and had lost a lot of weight. She wore a pair of black jogging pants that might have been just a little too small and her bright blue and white fall jacket. She was a couple inches taller than Martha, but still shorter than James. She looked a lot like James in terms of facial features, but with a slightly smaller nose and a more feminine appearance. Her hair and eyes were the same color and she usually kept her hair in a bun. It was easy to see that they were siblings.

"Hi, Jim!" she said, still trying to catch her breath, "Hi, Martha!"

"Oh, are you ready to come out and see the world?" Natalie said to Martha's belly, bending down so her face was level with it. She rubbed her hand across the belly, causing Martha to shoot a disapproving glance at James. She really hated it when anyone other than James or Eric touched her belly.

Natalie stood back up and glanced around, peering into the living room. "Where's Eric?" she asked. "He's sleeping. It's 8:30 already, Nat," James replied. "Oh, it gets dark so early now, I didn't realize it was that late already!" Natalie responded. "You two better get going. That little one's not going to wait around! You know how quickly Eric came!" she said as she started shooing James and Martha out the front door. James grabbed the car keys off the hook next to the door and said, "Yeah, we're going. We're going!", a slight chuckle in his voice.

Just then, Martha scrunched her face into a grimace of pain and clutched her stomach. "What's wrong?" James asked, concerned. "Nothing, just a contraction. We need to go," she replied.

"Oooh, Eric is going to be so excited when he hears that his new brother or sister is on the way!" Natalie shrieked, waving her hands in the air like a teenage girl about to meet her favorite boy band.

"Nat, he's two. He doesn't really know the difference," James said, half grinning. "Oh, quit being such a sour puss," she shot back with a smirk, "Now get going! Shoo, shoo, shoo!"

James and Martha hurried out the door. James opened the door to their blue Impala, and helped his wife get in the passenger seat. Once in, he shut the door and walked around to the driver's side. He climbed in, stuck the keys in the ignition and started the car. It was a nice car. Loaded with features and very few miles. It was a 2012 so it wasn't brand new and it wasn't the most luxurious car on the market, but James was never one to go overboard on things just to have a status symbol. It served the purpose and provided a few nice conveniences and that was all he cared about. Besides, he had a lot of student debt to pay off yet.

It was only about 4 miles from the small suburb in West Warwick where they lived to the hospital. And this time of night, traffic was relatively calm.

"Ok, here we are," James said as he pulled into the parking lot. He parked the car in the closest space to the main entrance he could find. He got out and helped Martha out of the vehicle, who was bracing against another strong contraction.

"You alright, Hun?" he asked again, for about the thirtieth time.

"Yeah, fine," she said, breathing heavily, her face twisted in pain. "Just contractions, you don't have to keep asking."

"I'm just concerned about you, is all," he replied with a slight grin peeking out from behind the mask of genuine concern. The first pregnancy was perfectly normal all the way through delivery and this one had been so far, too. He had no reason to worry, yet he still did.

James heard an ambulance approaching, but paid it no mind. After all, it wasn't exactly a strange thing to hear in a hospital parking lot. They were about halfway to the door, when the ambulance came zipping up the emergency lane. James could see through the windshield and noticed the look of sheer panic on the driver's face. "Oh boy, that doesn't look good," he muttered to himself, wondering if he might get roped into working while his wife delivered their baby.

He thought it looked like there was some commotion going on in the back, but couldn't quite see exactly what was going on. Just then, a man burst into the cab of the ambulance and violently attacked the driver.

"Holy shit!" James shouted, startling his wife.

"What is it?" she asked, suddenly concerned. She'd been looking at the ground in front of her, relying on James to guide her. Truthfully, she hadn't even noticed the ambulance.

She looked up to see the ambulance swerve and smash into several vehicles in the parking lot, setting off a number of car alarms. The impact sent the attacker through the windshield, skidding across the parking lot and leaving a bloody trail on the pavement.

"Oh!" Martha shrieked, covering her mouth and forgetting about the reason they were there. At least until another contraction nearly doubled her over. "James..."

"I know, Hun, I know," he replied, unsure of exactly what to do next. He desperately wanted to see if he could help the driver, but there was no way he could leave his wife's side.

Just then, the man who'd skidded across the pavement, got up and looked around furiously. He spotted James and Martha and charged at them, screaming and shouting, his eyes seemingly glowing eerily red.

"Martha, look out!" James shouted as he stepped in front of his wife. "Stop!" he shouted at the man charging them, but the man paid no heed. He plowed straight into them, knocking both to the ground. James twisted so as to not land on top of Martha, but this left Martha open to attack and the crazed man took advantage. He lunged at her and she defensively put her arms up to hold the man at bay. He was far more powerful, however, and pressed her arms down into her chest. He lunged again and sunk his teeth into her upper arm, just below the shoulder, tearing right through the fabric of her shirt.

"Aaaaaah! James!" she screamed.

By that point, James had recovered and delivered a powerful kick to the man's face, sending him sprawling off of his wife. "Get off of her, you damned lunatic!" he shouted.

"The asshole bit me!" Martha gasped, "He bit me!"

By this point several people from the hospital had rushed out to see what the commotion was all about. A police officer who happened to be patrolling spotted the commotion and also rushed to their aid.

"Are you alright, ma'am?" he asked Martha.

"You mean other than the fact that he _bit_ me?!" she shrieked in response, pointing at the man who'd attacked her.

He was starting to get back up when the officer drew his gun. The man shot a glare at the officer and suddenly rushed him, tackling him and sending the gun skidding. The officer, being larger and well trained, easily overpowered the man and pinned him to the ground. The man became further enraged and managed to squirm out of the officer's grip. He rounded on the officer again, but the officer once again countered his attack and put the man in a headlock. The officer struggled to hold the man while he fumbled trying to reach his cuffs. With some help from James and another man, the officer was able to cuff the madman and drag him, thrashing and screaming, to the squad car. He nearly threw the man into the back seat where the man continued to rage, leaving bloody smears on the windows where ever he struck them.

"What's the deal with that guy?" the officer asked, a little shaken but unharmed. "What happened?"

"I don't know...I...He just attacked the ambulance driver and the ambulance crashed. Then he attacked us," James stammered.

"And he bit me!" Martha screamed again. Between the shock of the whole situation, the pain in her arm, and the contractions, she was near hysterical.

"Calm down, honey, it'll be alright. He can't hurt you anymore. Right now you need to be concentrating on the baby," James said, trying to calm her down.

"Jim!" a woman's voice shouted. "What the hell is going on out here?"

"Barbara! My wife is in labor!" Jim shouted back. Barbara was one of the receptionists at the hospital and knew James pretty well. She was an older woman of about 50 or 60, slightly taller and heavier than Martha.

"Oh! Well, let's get you on inside, then," Barbara responded. "Oh my! What happened to you?" she asked when she noticed the bite mark on Martha's arm. Martha had just started to calm down a bit, but with that question, her eyes flared and she pointed at the squad car. "He bit me! The prick bit me!"

"Say what?!" Barbar asked in shock, staring at the man who'd now beaten himself nearly to death in the back seat of the squad car. "Oh dear!" she gasped. "E...Everything'll be just fine, dear. We'll get this cleaned up and we'll get that baby delivered, huh?" Barbara said, stuttering just a little but trying to lighten the mood.

As they walked to the main entrance of the hospital, James looked back at the crashed ambulance. A number of medical staff already had the driver out of the vehicle and onto a gurney, rushing him into the hospital. He was alive, but bleeding profusely from several wounds on his arm and neck that looked a lot like bite marks.

 _What the hell is wrong with that guy?_ James wondered.

The staff was doing their best to stop the bleeding but it didn't look good. There were two more gurneys at the back of the ambulance. Both appeared to have bodies on them covered with a white sheet. The EMTs in the back of the ambulance, James realized.

The police officer had hung the radio back in his squad car after calling in the incident. He was now busy trying to secure the area and began questioning witnesses.

Several news vans had now rolled up and James could hear multiple sirens approaching as well, most likely squad cars carrying more officers and the forensics team. As James took in the whole scene, he shuddered. He turned back and walked with his wife and Barbara into the hospital.


	2. Nightmares

Twenty years later...Hartford QZ

 _Jenny clung tight to her aunt Natalie, nearly choking her as she ran from the infected that had ambushed them. She and her aunt had gotten separated from her dad and brother. Jenny watched over her aunt's shoulder as the infected gained on them. She squeezed her eyes shut and dug her face into Natalie's shoulder, attempting to block out what was happening. The shrieks and screams and clicks made that impossible, however._

 _Jenny opened her eyes again. She shrieked just as the nearest runner lunged at them. He fell short, but managed to catch Natalie's foot and cause her to stumble. Natalie went down hard onto her side and she lost her grip on Jenny, sending the girl rolling. She scrambled trying to get to her feet, but before she could, a clicker tackled her hard._

" _Aunty Nat!" Jenny shrieked as Natalie wrestled with the clicker. She was losing fast and the clicker lunged in and sunk his teeth deep into her neck, ripping out a large chunk of flesh._

 _Jenny screamed in terror, causing the clicker to turn its attention on her. It lunged at her, teeth bared, ready to rip her apart._

Jenny's eyes shot wide open as she nearly jumped from her bed. She was soaked with a cold sweat. It had been more than 15 years since she lost her aunt and got separated from her father, but the nightmare kept coming back. She remembered that day like it had happened only yesterday.

She got up from her bed and walked to the large window. The window took up most of the wall and provided an excellent view of the river. "Well, you're a mess," she said to herself, looking at her faint reflection in the window. Her long, light brown hair was knotted and tangled. Small strands clung to her forehead and cheeks. The long, white t-shirt she wore normally hung halfway to her knees, but it was all twisted and clung haphazardly from her small thin frame, one shoulder partially sticking out.

She heard the bed frame creak on the other side of the makeshift divider and then footsteps headed her way. "Are you alright?" Isaac asked, standing in the doorway to her room.

"Yeah," she replied, straightening her shirt and pulling it down over her once-bright-red pajama pants, "just a bad dream."

Jenny lived in a rundown 2 bedroom apartment with Nate, his wife Marian, and their son Isaac. Isaac and Jenny shared the larger bedroom. Nate had built a series of dividers from a bunch of old pallets stood on edge, nailed together using some old lumber and draped with old curtains and bed sheets. It was crude but it effectively created two bedrooms from one. Nate and Marian had the other bedroom.

Isaac stepped into the room, "Same one as always?"

"Yeah, same one as always," she replied, turning to look at him. He was a few inches shy of six feet tall with an average build. Not really thin, but not really all that big either. He didn't appear all that muscular, but she knew he could handle himself pretty well. He had short, dark brown, almost black, hair and big brown eyes.

She turned back towards the window as he stepped up beside her. He wasn't really a big guy, but he made Jenny look rather small by comparison. She was a full head or more shorter than him and slightly thinner.

"They sure have enough guards out there, huh?" Isaac said, trying to change the subject away from the nightmare. "I guess those Fireflies really got the military on edge."

"Yeah, and it's putting everyone else on edge, too," she responded, watching the guards patrol the checkpoint on the bridge. Ever since the Fireflies had shown up in other zones, the military here had been on edge, but it wasn't until a little over a year ago, when the Fireflies set their sights on Boston, that the military started actively increasing security. Boston was the nearest functional zone, and the Firefly activity there really ignited the military's paranoia. They started putting more soldiers at checkpoints and even added a half dozen more checkpoints. There had to have been about a dozen soldiers at the checkpoint on the bridge. There was another bridge to the north and although she couldn't see it from here, she guessed there were just as many at that checkpoint. They started stopping people in the street and doing random searches. They searched homes. They took people in for questioning. They even executed two "suspected" Fireflies about a month ago, even though they had no evidence they were actually Fireflies.

"Yep," he agreed. After a long pause, he said, "Hey, did you hear we got a bunch of supply trucks in today?"

Jenny smiled at him. "You mean yesterday? It's two in the morning," she said pointing at the clock on the stand next to her bed. "Whatever," he responded, giving her a little shove.

"More squirt guns?" she asked, only half joking. Isaac laughed. "Yeah like we'd ever get anything that useful again!"

A few years back, the two had snuck into the warehouse looking for nothing in particular. They were bored and wanted to see if they could get in. They got in and stumbled across a crate packed full of squirt guns. There were some other toys in there, too, but the majority of it was squirt guns of all shapes and sizes. Exactly how and why the zone had received a crate of squirt guns remained a mystery but over the next week or so, they'd emptied the crate and distributed the goods to the children in the zone. No one noticed the crate being emptied, but they sure noticed the sudden onslaught of armed children.

"All I know is they damn well better have plenty of rations in those trucks," Isaac said hopefully.

"I hope so. Lot of people are starting to get hungry," Jenny replied. "Why the hell won't they let us grow our own food? I mean, we got that gigantic park inside the wall. It ain't ever used. Never see anyone around there. Why couldn't we just dig it all up and make a community garden?"

The military had recently started getting stingy with distribution of rations. Hartford used to be one of the best zones to be in, but it was quickly headed downhill what with all the Firefly paranoia.

"I don't know, but I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to give it a try," Isaac said with a slight chuckle.

"Hey! You wanna go shoot some hoops?" he said giving Jenny a wink and a nudge with his elbow. "Yeah, like you could beat me!" she challenged. They both laughed and headed for the basketball court housed in the lower levels of the apartment complex they lived in.

* * *

After about an hour of HORSE, and Jenny completely dominating, the two made their way back to their bedrooms.

"You really need to work on your shots," Jenny teased.

"I think you cheated," Isaac shot back, playfully shoving her as they walked.

"How did I cheat?! You just can't aim."

The pair arrived at their apartment door and stood just outside, trying to quiet their chuckling so as not to wake Nate or Marian. When they had themselves under control they opened the door and walked in, closing the door behind them and locking it.

"And where have you two been?" Nate asked, arms crossed and glaring at them.

Jenny and Isaac both jumped at the sound of his voice, but immediately calmed once they realized who it was. It was a little unusual for him to be awake at this hour since he always slept so soundly. His "job" sometimes called for late night work, though, so it wasn't unheard of.

"Relax, dad. We were just playing some HORSE downstairs. Never even left the building." Isaac explained coolly.

Nate was a near copy of Isaac, or rather, Isaac a copy of Nate, except that Nate's hair was just a little lighter and he was a bit taller.

"All right, fine. But I don't need to tell you how edgy the military is lately, and I don't want you two going out on your own," Nate scolded.

Nate was a smuggler and sometimes brought Isaac and Jenny along on certain drops, so he couldn't get too mad at them for sneaking around the city. But that didn't mean he couldn't worry when they did it on their own.

"Oh, come on, dad. I'm 23. And Jenny's only a few months away from 20. I think we're old enough to handle ourselves," Isaac shot back.

"You're probably right, but as your father, it's my job to worry about you," Nate said.

He hadn't really directed his usage of the word "father" toward Jenny, but she knew it included her. Nate had saved Jenny's life the night her aunt died. He'd shot the clicker just before it could sink its teeth into her and then killed the three runners. He'd stayed by her side while she and her aunt said their final goodbyes. After her aunt passed, he took her in his arms and comforted her, carrying her away from the awful scene. He's looked after her ever since. She didn't feel right calling him dad since she vaguely remembered her own father and he had never once even given a hint that she should refer to him as such. Even so, he did include her in the family and would occasionally refer to her as though she were his own daughter. She never argued, though, because she did love him like a father.

Jenny and Isaac just grinned at him innocently. He grinned back and playfully slapped Isaac's shoulder. "All right you two, back to bed. You know we gotta be down at the warehouse in a few hours, right?"

"Yeah, we know. Trucks ain't gonna unload themselves," Jenny sighed.

"All right, see you in the morning...er...in a couple hours," Nate said as he turned around and shuffled back to his bedroom.

Jenny and Isaac headed back to their own rooms. "Sweet dreams," Isaac said with sincerity as he turned away from Jenny toward his room. "Thanks, you too," she replied.

She went into her own room but instead of going to her bed she walked to the window. She listened to the squeaky metal bed frame as Isaac crawled in. No more than 30 seconds later, she could hear him snoring lightly. She laughed to herself. She was always amazed at how quickly he could fall asleep. She stared out at the checkpoint for a while longer, watching the soldiers patrol. Her thoughts lingered on her nightmare and on the edginess of the military. Just as she was about to turn and head for her bed, she caught movement in the shadows across the street. She strained to see what it was and realized that it was the shadow of a person.

 _Infected?_ she wondered. _No, the movement is too deliberate._

Dismissing it as some teenager sneaking around looking for trouble or a smuggler making a drop (after all, Nate wasn't the only one), she turned and walked to her bed. She lay down and before long she was out.


	3. A Large Shipment

It was early afternoon and the supply trucks were nearly unloaded. The warehouse was a few blocks south of the apartment complex where Jenny lived. It was a huge building located along the river between the south bridge checkpoint and the southern wall. Nate had said it used to be some sort of convention center before the outbreak, but it made an excellent warehouse now, since it had a nice dock area where they could park the supply trucks to be unloaded. In front of the docks was a large concrete structure Nate called a parking ramp. Walls ran along both sides. The eastern wall was much thicker and apparently built for foot traffic. The western wall was thin and the military had attached catwalks to the inside near the top. A concrete drive led around the front of the parking ramp to the east where a convenient checkpoint was built into the wall surrounding the docking area. Several soldiers patrolled the walls, four were stationed at the checkpoint, and a half dozen or so patrolled the floor with the crew unloading the trucks.

There were four trucks and only a handful of people to unload them. When the military started cracking down, people started leaving. Jenny didn't quite understand it, since she knew other zones weren't much better or were far worse in some cases. Some of the ones who'd left mentioned heading to Boston to join up with the Fireflies, which she didn't understand either. As far as she was concerned, the Fireflies had caused the mess Hartford was in. The military had always been oppressive with rules and regulations, but it was certainly tolerable. Now, the military was getting downright abusive.

"Back to work!" a soldier shouted. A slightly older looking guy had sat down on a crate, sweating and a look of pain on his face.

"I...I can't..." the man panted, holding his side. "I'm starvi-oopf!" The soldier jabbed the man in the ribs with the barrel of his rifle. "You can eat when you're done unloading these trucks!" The man got up, staggered a few steps, steadied himself and started walking back to the truck with the soldier watching him. They'd been working for several hours, and the military only let them take momentary breaks to get water.

People leaving wasn't the only, or even the main, reason that there was a skeleton crew unloading the trucks. A very large percentage of the able-bodied population simply refused to tolerate the slave-labor treatment and just plain didn't show up. Many of them took severe punishments as a result, but people were getting fed up with the military's paranoia and the resulting harassment. People were starting to rebel. And a lack of food certainly didn't help.

"Yeah, we could. If we had anything _to_ eat..." Isaac mumbled under his breath, as he and Nate carried in a particularly heavy crate.

In fact, they had actually received one full truck of rations, noted by the big, red RATIONS stamp on the side of the crates. However, once the military took their share, there really wasn't much left.

Jenny and Marian were following Nate and Isaac with a slightly smaller crate into the warehouse. "I'm just glad we're not out in the sun," Jenny said, reminded of her own hunger as her stomach let out a rumble. It was only mid-May, but despite the chilly nights, the days were heating up fast. The trucks were backed into the loading docks so everyone worked inside which, of course, meant very little air movement. Even still, the concrete structure kept the air somewhat cool and they weren't in the beating sun.

The boys set their crate down heavily and the girls set theirs on top. "Me too," Marian agreed, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead using the hem of her light gray tank top. "But then again, a breeze would feel nice."

"Women...just can't please 'em," Nate said to Isaac as the two started walking back toward the truck. "Couple months ago they were complaining about how cold it was." Jenny and Marian looked at each other, smiled and rolled their eyes, then followed after the boys.

Marian was about the same height as Jenny, but quite a bit stockier. And no where near as flat chested. She also kept her jet black hair cut short instead of left long like Jenny's.

"They send us all this other junk, but they can't send us any food," Isaac lamented again after a short period of silence. Two trucks had been filled with a variety of crates, some stamped as MEDICAL, some unmarked. The unmarked crates usually contained miscellaneous items like blankets, clothes, batteries for flashlights or other small electronics, and sometimes even the electronic devices themselves.

Jenny and Marian chuckled slightly, causing Isaac to look back at them. "Men...all they think about is food," Jenny said snickering. "Well, that, and one other thing," Marian added. This time Nate looked back. "See, we're easy to figure out," he replied, smiling. They all laughed at that.

"Hey! Watch it with that!" a soldier shouted. A group of four guys were trying to carry a very large crate from the back of the truck. A slightly thinner guy with longer, reddish hair had fumbled and nearly dropped his corner of the crate. "Damage anything and you'll be paying for it!" Nate and Isaac rushed over to help with the crate. "Sorry! I slipped," the man said defensively. As the six of them strained with the large crate, Jenny and Marian grabbed a much smaller, though still quite heavy, crate from the back of the truck and followed the men into the warehouse.

The men set the crate down with a sharp thud that echoed throughout the warehouse. Nate quickly went to help his wife with the heavy crate. Isaac went to help Jenny, but was cut off by one of the men who'd been carrying the large crate. He was dark-skinned, about the same size as Isaac, though a little more buff. He had short, curly, black hair and brown eyes.

"Here, let me get that for ya," the man said with a smile, gently pushing Jenny out the way. Her eyes locked on his for a brief second, but not brief enough that Isaac didn't notice. She grinned at him and said, "Sure, all yours," before handing the crate off to him completely. "Damn, girl! I'm impressed," he said, obviously surprised by the weight she'd been carrying.

Isaac gave her a nudge with his elbow. "I see what's going on here," he whispered with a wink.

"Oh, please," Jenny said rolling her eyes.

After he and Nate put the crate down, the man came back over to Jenny. Jenny watched him as he approached and she had to admit that he was quite handsome, despite the fresh scar slanting across his forehead. "Name's Henry," he said sticking his hand out. She shook it politely. He had a strong grip. "Jenny," she replied, smiling.

After about an hour, the last of the trucks was unloaded. Jenny and Henry had both left their former groups to work together. Isaac never missed an opportunity to snicker or purse his lips or something whenever Jenny happened to look his direction.

The guy who'd sat down earlier, complaining of hunger, finally collapsed, dropping the end of the crate he was carrying. The crate splintered, scattering its contents all over the warehouse floor. Jenny wasn't surprised to see what had spilled out, though a few people appeared to be. All the crates in the last truck had been stamped with five letters: FEDRA. Two soldiers drug the man off to who knows where while the rest of the crew spent a half hour picking up rifles and ammunition.

* * *

Later that night, Nate and Marian left to scope out the supplies they'd received that day and take inventory of any trade-able merchandise. The weapons were obviously of high value and they knew there were a lot, but they didn't know exactly what was in the rest of the crates. They didn't like trading other stuff, particularly rations, if they could help it, but sometimes they could score a good deal on certain things. Jenny and Isaac had wanted to come along, but Nate had been adamant that they sit this one out. Nate had wanted Marian to stay, too, but she wasn't going to take "no" for an answer, and he finally just gave up.

"I hope they're alright," Jenny said, worriedly. It had been more than three hours since Nate and Marian left for the warehouse.

"They'll be fine," Isaac reassured her. "A little extra security won't stop them."

"A little?" she replied, raising an eyebrow at him. They were sitting in a couple of old lawn chairs on the roof of their apartment building where they often came on warm summer nights to just enjoy the weather or gaze up at the stars. It also gave them an excellent view of the warehouse. It was too far to see much detail, but Jenny could see the shapes of soldiers walking around on the well-lit walls. She guessed there must have been at least double the normal guards patrolling the walls. They were also using the spotlights, sweeping the perimeters of the warehouse. The spotlights consumed an incredible amount of electricity and were normally reserved for situations when there was a known trespasser.

"They're not taking chances. People know what's in those FEDRA crates now," she said.

"Pssht. Like no one knew before," he replied dismissively.

"Most people could really only guess. They didn't know for sure. The military knew that. They knew people weren't really willing to take risks breaking into the warehouse hoping to find weapons, only to end up finding a crate of uniforms instead," Jenny explained.

"I suppose you have a point," Isaac admitted. "I know I'm sure as hell willing to take more chances when I know there's a good haul."

"Plus, that's a whole lot of weapons," Jenny continued. "Normally get just a handful of crates at a time, a dozen at the most. This is the first time I've ever seen an entire truckload of 'em." Jenny paused, a slight smirk forming on her face. She looked over at Isaac. "Wait...did you just admit I was right?" she said, a hint of playful sarcasm in her voice.

"Aren't you always?" he replied without missing a beat.

"Damn right I am!" she said, slapping him playfully on the arm. "'Bout time you figure it out." They both laughed.

When their laughter subsided, they both retreated into thoughtful silence, gazing at the distant warehouse. Jenny couldn't help but worry about Nate and Marian, but she knew deep down that they could handle themselves. They'd made it through much worse circumstances than these. What really troubled her was the unusual shipment of weapons. She knew that they also got other military supplies in the FEDRA crates, not just weapons, but this was still a very large shipment. She had the sneaking suspicion that the vast majority of the crates were filled with weapons and ammunition. But why? What were they up to? There wasn't any Firefly activity here in Hartford. She didn't even think there were any Fireflies at all in Hartford. There certainly was enough paranoia. Were they just stockpiling out of fear that the Fireflies might attack and cut off their supply lines?

"You know if it weren't for those damn Fireflies, they probably wouldn't be nearly this paranoid about people getting in after those weapons," Jenny said, breaking the silence.

"I don't think I can give you that one," Isaac replied with a slight smile. "They probably wouldn't be as paranoid, you're right on that, but it isn't the Fireflies' fault that they are."

Nate and Isaac supported the Firefly effort. They believed in their cause, that a cure existed. Jenny wanted to believe, but she was doubtful. She really didn't like their sneaky ambush tactics, either, or the way they instigated riots in order to overthrow the military. And for what? So they could take control?

"Why isn't it? They go around blowing shit up and overthrowing the military in every zone around us, why shouldn't the military worry that Hartford's next?" she asked, her voice thick with disdain.

"Because the military just wants to keep their thumb over everyone. They don't give a shit about anyone but themselves-"

"And the Fireflies do?" she interrupted.

"Yes! They're fighting the military to try to bring some semblance of freedom back into the world. They care about humanity," Isaac defended. "They're trying to find a cure for Christ's sake! What has the military done to try to help?"

Jenny just looked at him, unable to come up with any kind of response.

"Nothing," he answered for her. "Nothing but beat us down and keep us barricaded in this shit hole with barely enough food to get us by."

"Oh come on now, it hasn't always been that bad here," she said.

"It hasn't?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

They fell into another moment of silence. Jenny was, by no means, mad at Isaac. She just couldn't agree with his point of view. She was no sympathizer with the military, but she certainly didn't think it had been all that bad here. There were still strictly enforced curfews and anyone who scanned positive for infection was shot on sight. They had always been forced to work around the zone doing things like cleaning the streets and dining halls or unloading supply trucks, although the military used to unload the FEDRA crates themselves. Punishments for not doing one's duties were sometimes severe, but the work was fair and the citizens were typically treated decently while they worked so neglecting duties was fairly rare. They'd always had a decent food supply and mostly free roam of the zone. The only checkpoints in the zone were those at the entrances. Once the Fireflies hit Boston, though, they got more restrictive and abusive. Being caught out after curfew could now easily get you shot instead of thrown into a cell for the night. Rations got scarce. Checkpoints were added randomly throughout the zone, and soldiers even started randomly stopping citizens in the streets. They started randomly searching homes and hauling people in for questioning, often for days at a time. They started forcing nearly _every_ task onto the citizens in the name of security, claiming they needed every soldier dedicated to protecting the zone. The work became more like slave labor and less like a job, and so rebellion started increasing. And in turn, so did the punishments. All because of those stupid Fireflies.

"So you and Henry really hit it off today, huh?" Isaac said suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughts. Apparently, his train of thought hadn't been on the same track as hers.

"Ha!" she barked. "Yeah right!"

He gave her a skeptical look. "Pssht. Whatever. You guys just kinda left everyone to work off by yourselves. Alooone," he said, dragging out the 'o' sound with a suggestive tone.

"Yeah, whatever. I just didn't want to be rude," she replied. "I mean, sure he's good looking and he's a nice guy and all, but..."

"But what?"

"There's just no place for that shit in this world. I mean, do you really want to settle down with someone, start a family...knowing the kind of world we live in? Just better to be alone."

Jenny didn't like the idea of getting close to anyone in this world. She tried very hard to keep her distance while maintaining a likeable persona. She tried to be nice to people and always helped out when she was needed. For the most part, she was very well-liked by most people. She just never let anyone get close to her heart. Her heart was locked away in a steel cage and only three people in the entire world had ever earned the privilege of possessing a key: Nate, Marian, and Isaac.

"What about us?" Isaac said, smiling.

"You guys don't count," she replied through a chuckle.

He slapped a hand to his chest, feigning insult. "Ouch. That hurts, Jen-"

 _ _Woooooooooot!_ Woooooooooot! __Woooooooooot!_

The sound of Isaac's voice was lost in the sudden cry of sirens.

"Oh shit!" Jenny exclaimed, jumping so quickly from her chair that it toppled backwards. "They've been caught!"


	4. Rendezvous

**AN: Sorry for the long wait! It's been pretty busy lately and I struggled with the next bits of the story after the spilling of the weapon crate. And speaking of, if that's the last thing you remember, head back to the last chapter and read it again. I added a bunch of content to it because I realized that my chapters were kind of short. So from here out, chapters will be a bit longer. And again, sorry for the wait! I'll try to be quicker with future updates!  
**

* * *

Jenny spun on her heels and ran for the door to the stairwell. She reached the door and just barely pulled it open when Isaac stopped her.

"Wait! Jenny, look!" he said pointing.

Jenny jogged back to Isaac, not bothering to close the door. She followed the direction of his finger and saw what he was looking at. Two shadows running at a flat out sprint.

"It's them," Isaac said.

They watched as the shadows got closer and closer. Soon they heard the sound of engines between the hoots of the siren. They were bringing out the humvees. Jenny kept one eye on the two shadows as she watched to see where the humvees were headed. Suddenly, a humvee shot out from behind the warehouse and headed to the west instead of north towards their apartment and the two desperately fleeing shadows. Another one appeared and turned south.

"I don't think they're the ones that got caught," Isaac said hopefully.

Two more humvees appeared and again headed to the west and the south.

"No, I don't think so," Jenny agreed.

The first southbound humvee turned west when it reached the wall. The other turned west as well after a few blocks. Then, another humvee appeared and Jenny's heart sank when it turned to the north.

"But now they will," she said despairingly.

They watched as the two shadows disappeared into a side alley as the humvees headlights illuminated the street. The mounted spotlight swept back and forth scanning the buildings and alleys as it passed. Jenny watched wearily, waiting to see if Nate and Marian would be spotted. The humvee was nearly to the alley they'd disappeared into. She flinched slightly when the circle of light passed over the alleyway. No shouting. No gunshots. The light swept back around scanning the next alley. She breathed a sigh of relief and heard Isaac do the same.

"There! Look," Jenny said, spotting two shadows appear on the opposite side of the building.

"They went around the other side. Doubled back towards the humvee," Isaac said, both surprised and impressed.

When the humvee turned and headed west, Nate and Marian darted from the side of the building, once again in a full-out sprint back to the apartment. Jenny and Isaac walked to the edge of the roof, watching Nate and Marian as they approached the apartment building. They were no more than a couple hundred feet from the building when a small patrol of soldiers appeared from an alleyway about a block behind. The patrol turned and headed straight for them at a slow jog, flashlights dancing on the buildings and alleys. Nate and Marian never slowed and the soldiers hadn't spotted them just yet. When Jenny could no longer see them over the edge of the roof, she spun around and darted for the still-open stairwell door.

"Come on!" she urged Isaac.

He watched the patrol a moment longer to make sure they hadn't spotted his parents and then turned to follow Jenny. Just before they reached the door, shouts erupted from the street below followed by a short burst of gunshots.

"No!" Isaac cried out, skidding to a halt.

He started to run back to the edge of the roof, but Jenny grabbed his arm.

"Isaac, come on. We can't do anything from up here," she pleaded.

Isaac paused a moment, fighting some internal conflict, but he ultimately turned and followed Jenny once more. They ran down the stairs as fast as they could, often skipping a step or two in a single stride. Their apartment was six floors from the top, roughly halfway up the building. When they reached their floor, they exited the stairwell and made a bee-line for their apartment. Jenny couldn't help but notice how eerily quite it seemed. Their footsteps and panting breaths the loudest sounds, drowning out even the muffled and distant sound of the wailing siren. It wasn't really surprising, though, considering it was very early morning and most people would have been sleeping. Even with the commotion now going on in the zone, those that had awakened would be staying in their homes out of fear. As they approached their apartment, however, a new sound reached their ears. The pounding echo of footsteps on the metal staircase of the fire escape just down the hall from their apartment, muffled slightly by the double doors guarding the stairwell.

Jenny and Isaac skidded to a halt, searching for a place to hide. Their apartment door was too far to reach in time and there wasn't anything in the hallway to hide behind. Suddenly, Nate and Marian burst through the doors.

"Holy shit! Mom! Dad!" Isaac gasped, running to them.

"What the hell are you guys doing out here?!" Nate asked, his eyes wide with either fear or surprise, or maybe both.

"We were up on the roof watch-" Jenny started.

"No, it doesn't matter. We need to leave. Now!" Marian said, cutting her off. "The soldiers saw us come in here. They'll turn the place upside down looking for us."

They started running back in the direction Jenny and Isaac had come from, away from their apartment. Their apartment was on the north end of the building, and the fire escape on that end was practically in tact, except for one or two floors where the door was inaccessible. That was normally a good thing, but not when you needed to escape the building unnoticed. The fire escape on the south end was in far worse shape. The top four or five levels of stairs had completely collapsed. More importantly, the bottom three levels of the stairwell were completely inaccessible from those floors. Luckily, the stairs remained mostly intact.

"Did they see you well enough to recognize you?" Jenny asked as they ran.

"I don't know, but we're not taking that chance," Nate replied.

"But won't it draw suspicion if they find our apartment empty?" Jenny pressed.

"Definitely," Marian said. "But at least we can lie our way out of that one. We just tell 'em we were staying by a friend."

"I know a few people who'd vouch for us," Nate said.

They reached the southern fire escape and bolted down a couple flights of stairs, cringing at the noise. They slowed their descent and began taking more cautious, quieter steps so as not to draw the attention of the soldiers. Nate paused at the fourth floor, one of the few that was accessible, and peered through the dusty window of the doorway.

"Doesn't appear to be any signs of the soldiers," he said in a panted whisper. "I don't think they've gotten this far up yet. It was a pretty small group and they can't spread out that fast."

"Rest assured they've called in backup, though," Marian said, slightly bent over leaning her hands on her knees.

"Yep," Nate agreed. "That's why we need to keep moving."

They rested for just a minute and then continued their descent at a much more controlled pace. The finally reached the bottom of what was left of the stairs. The first level of stairs had collapsed. It was about a ten foot drop and all four of them dropped down, landing with ease. They could hear muffled shouts and commands from the soldiers out in the main part of the building. Nate walked to one corner where a large piece of platform lay flat on the ground with pieces of the staircase laying on top and around it so as to not look too conspicuous. He knelt down and lifted it up revealing a hole in the floor.

"All right, come on," he whispered urging the other three over.

He held it up just enough for Jenny, Isaac, and Marian to crawl through. Then Isaac took over from below, holding it so Nate could come through. The two of them gently set the platform back down. Nate clicked his flashlight on. They were now in a narrow, dirt-walled tunnel that led to the basement of a neighboring barber shop. Why the shop had a basement, they didn't know or care. All they knew was that it made an excellent hideout since the entire shop above was collapsed. The only two ways in or out were tunnels they'd dug themselves.

Nate flipped a switch as he entered the basement through the knocked out wall. He'd managed to somehow rig a few small lights into the power grid of the zone. It wasn't much, but it eliminated the need for a noisy generator that would draw way too much unwanted attention. The basement wasn't very big. The walls were built out of plain old unpainted cinder blocks. Various pipes and ducts hung from the ceiling. They'd entered near a corner of the room, with the rusty, partially-collapsed metal staircase rising to their left. A workbench sat along the wall to their right and various plastic shelves lined the back wall. The shelves held enough food and clean water to last the four of them about two days. They used to have almost two weeks worth stockpiled, but with rations being so scarce lately, they didn't feel right hoarding that much food so they gave most of it away. A couple shelves also held various small boxes of ammo, a few pistols and various weapon parts as well as a few other miscellaneous items. A broken down, raggedy couch sat along the fourth wall.

"Alright, guys, grab your stuff," Nate said as he walked around the staircase to the tunnel opening underneath it in the corner, next to the couch.

Jenny was already walking over to the shelves where her and Isaac's backpacks were kept. Hers was a smaller dark green bag with a lot of smaller pockets. She carried the majority of her supplies, which usually wasn't much since she preferred to travel light, in the large pouch, but she was also very particular about organizing things and kept various smaller items separated in the smaller pouches.

Isaac came up beside her and grabbed his pack off the shelf. It was larger than Jenny's and had only two compartments, the main one and a small one on the front. It was a dirty, but gaudy, red and blue pattern with what appeared to be spiderwebs printed on it. The word "Spiderman" was barely visible. Neither of them really knew who or what a "Spiderman" was.

"Why do you have to wear that awful thing?" Jenny asked, shooting a disgusted glance at his pack.

"You're just jealous," he replied, smirking.

"Of that?!" she said, jabbing a thumb at his pack and shaking her head. "Uggh! No, it's ugly. And have you ever heard of camouflage?"

In truth, the backpack didn't stand out any more than hers did since it was so dirty and worn.

"Come on, guys. Hurry it up," Marian said forcefully.

They grabbed a couple 9mm pistols and quickly looked them over, testing the actions. They each grabbed a magazine and slammed it into their pistols and stuffed them into the back of their pants. They were each going to grab a spare magazine, but there was only one left. Isaac picked it up, but tossed it at Jenny.

"Here. You take it," he said. "You need it more than I do."

She caught the magazine and stuck it in the front pocket of her jeans.

"Oh whatever," she replied, flashing a smile of thanks.

"You might be able to shoot hoops, but at least _I_ can shoot something that counts," he said with a smirk.

Jenny just rolled her eyes as they turned and headed towards the tunnel entrance where Marian was waiting for them. She wasn't a bad shot with a gun, but Isaac was better by far.

"Come on. You're father's up ahead scouting the exit," she said.

Jenny would be lying if she said she didn't feel a tingle of warmth whenever Nate or Marian would include her in a statement like that, implying that she was just as much their daughter as Isaac was their son. But that was always followed by a slight pang of guilt. She always felt like it betrayed her real family.

"Where are we going, anyway?" Isaac asked.

"To visit a friend," Marian replied, smiling as she turned to walk down the tunnel.

* * *

They'd left their hideout and made their way through the city, dodging patrols the entire way. They'd made it out just before several humvees surrounded their apartment building. If they'd have waited a moment longer, they'd have been caught emerging from their tunnel. They watched from a distance as soldiers stormed into the building, but they didn't waste any time after that. Jenny felt bad for those still in the building. She knew they'd be taken for questioning and likely beaten and tortured. Or worse.

The sirens no longer wailed, so the only sounds in the zone were the hum of engines or the occasional shouts and stomps of foot patrols. They made their way to the northwest corner of the zone where they had a tunnel that led outside the wall. Travel outside of the wall was actually easier than usual since the focus of the military's attention was inside the wall. They were still searching for Nate and Marian and didn't realize that they'd already escaped the zone. Or at least that's what Jenny thought.

"There it is. Just up ahead," Nate said as he rounded the corner of a large building. He pointed towards an old abandoned police station.

He broke into a slow jog. Marian, Isaac, and Jenny broke into a jog behind him. Their footsteps echoed in the relative silence outside the walls. They could still faintly hear the engines and occasional shouts, but they were muffled and distant.

"Who are we meeting and why are we meeting them outside the walls?" Isaac asked.

"It's not safe in there right now," Marian said, ignoring the first half of the question.

"Come on, hurry up," Nate said opening the large double doors of the station.

They quickly ducked inside. The station was very dark with only small slivers of moonlight coming in through the small cracks of the boarded up windows.

"Mark?" Nate called quietly. "Lana?"

"Nate? That you?" a male voice said from somewhere in the shadows.

A figure emerged from behind what appeared to be a counter. The man walked over to Nate. The man, presumably Mark, was an inch or so taller than Nate and a lot bigger built. He wore all black, including a black hoodie. The hood was pulled up so it was difficult to see his face clearly, but Jenny could make out a broad nose, thick mustache and a well-trimmed beard. His bushy eyebrows shadowed his eyes further, making it impossible to see them.

"Where's Lana?" Marian asked, a worried look on her face.

It was difficult to see in the darkness, but there was no mistaking the look of grief that gripped the man's scruffy features.

"She...she was...captured," Mark stammered, dropping his gaze to the floor.

"Oh no," Marian gasped, putting her hand over her mouth.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Mark," Nate said, laying a hand on Mark's shoulder.

Mark gave a quick sniff and lifted his head, once again looking at Nate.

"Doesn't matter now. What's done is done," he said quickly, brushing Nate's hand away and assuming a stony expression. He turned to look at Isaac and Jenny, apparently noticing them for the first time.

"Who're they?" he asked, nodding slightly at them, his eyes narrowing as he looked directly at Jenny.

"This is Isaac and Jenny," Nate responded, pointing at each of them in turn.

"Your kids?" Mark asked, sounding a little surprised.

"Yep."

"Why bring them out here?"

"Not safe in the zone right now. You know as well as I do what would happen to them if the military got a hold of them while we were gone," Nate explained.

Jenny did, too. They'd have noticed Nate and Marian's absence and suspected them of being involved with the break-in on the warehouse, which would in turn bring suspicion onto Isaac and Jenny. Jenny shuddered at the thought, her mind conjuring images of the brutal interrogation the military would administer. Maybe Isaac was right. Maybe the military here was just starting to show their true colors. She wasn't convinced. After all, it wasn't until after the Fireflies started causing trouble next door that the military got riled up.

"Right. Let's go downstairs, shall we?" Mark said, shrugging his shoulders.

* * *

Mark led them through the eerie police station and down a set of stairs. They walked down a long unlit corridor using their flashlights. Finally, they opened a set of double doors and stepped into a large room.

"Wait here," Mark said as he walked over to a distant corner of the room.

They waited in silence for a moment, watching Mark's flashlight dance around as he fidgeted with something. Jenny heard the sound of Mark yanking on the pull cord of what she assumed was a generator. The motor turned over, sputtered, but failed to start. Mark muttered under his breath and gave another yank on the cord. This time the generator took off with a relatively quiet buzz. Mark stood up and reached his hand out to the wall, flicking a switch. Suddenly, a number of small fluorescent fixtures hummed to life, illuminating the room.

They were standing in what appeared to have once been the armory of the police station. All of the police gear was long gone, of course.

Mark walked back over to the group and that's when Jenny noticed the shiny, silver pendant.

"Firefly!" she spat under her breath.

Mark apparently heard because he quickly tucked the pendant into his shirt and turned his gaze on Jenny.

"I am. What's it to ya?" he said defensively. He narrowed his eyes once more and stared strangely at Jenny.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" she asked him, getting uncomfortable in his scrutinizing glare.

"No, but I think I know you," he replied.


	5. Big News

"Excuse me?" Jenny said in confusion as she stared at the Firefly standing before her.

"She's not really your daughter is she?" Mark asked Nate, ignoring Jenny.

"Not biologically, no," Nate responded reluctantly. "...But I've looked after her for a very long time."

"Didn't think so," Mark said, turning his gaze back to Jenny. "She's the spittin' image of Jim."

Jenny's eyes widened at the sound of her father's name. Could he still be alive? She'd given up hope of ever being reunited with him a long time ago.

"What was his last name?" Jenny asked. She had to be sure that it was really him.

"Heh, it's a hard one to forget," Mark said, a smile forming on his gruff face. "Twinkley. His name is James Twinkley."

Isaac tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a chuckle. He'd always found Jenny's last name amusing. Jenny did, too, but amusement was the furthest thing from her mind right now. Her eyes were wide in surprise, her jaw hanging slightly agape. It was him. This man definitely knew her father.

"Where is he? Is he alive?" Jenny asked.

Mark turned and walked to a corner of the armory Jenny hadn't noticed. Jenny quickly followed, anxious to hear Mark's response. The others followed, though a bit slower.

The lockers and gun racks in this area had been cleared out and rearranged to form a sort of small living quarters. An old wooden table with five matching chairs sat in the center of the space. A ratty-looking, formerly blue couch sat along one wall. A row of metal shelves, stocked with food and water, sat along the adjacent wall. A single gun rack sat next to these shelves and, unlike the other racks, had several rifles propped up on it. The armory was clearly being used as a hideout and probably had been for some time.

"Last I knew, yeah, he's still alive. He's a surgeon back at the lab in Colorado," Mark replied, grabbing a faded box from one of the shelves.

"But that's not really important, right now. We have bigger things to worry about," he said, a sullen and stone-cold expression suddenly replacing the slight glint of humor on his face as he pulled a small rectangular object, wrapped in green plastic, from the box.

"You got that right," Nate sighed, coming to stand next to Mark and crossing his arms. "With Lana being captured, the military is going to go nuts."

By this point, Jenny had stopped paying attention to them. She was focused on the news of her father. He was alive. He was actually alive.

Jenny turned and walked towards the decrepit couch, vaguely aware that the others had left her and sat down at the table. She heard Nate mutter something about granola bars being barely edible before the outbreak. Jenny sat down on the edge of the couch, hands laying flat in her lap. She stared blankly in front of her, not really looking at anything. After all these years, she finally had a chance to reunite with her real father. But...how would Nate take it? He'd been looking after her for so long that even she considered him her father now. How could she just turn her back on him? He'd been the one who'd kept her safe, comforted her when she had nightmares, fed her, clothed her, treated her like family. Nate and Marian had waited nearly a month outside the Providence QZ, holed up in an abandoned apartment. They'd scouted the area, asked any survivors they met if they knew Jenny. They had done everything in their power to attempt to locate her family. Had her father even tried to find her after they'd been separated? Did he even care?

 _Of course he did,_ she thought to herself harshly. _This is a shitty, dangerous world. Who knows where he ended up after the Infected attacked us._

What mattered was that he was alive and he was in Colorado so that was where she needed to go. She suddenly realized, however, that she did not know where in Colorado he was. Only that he was at some lab. That could have been anywhere and Colorado was an awfully big area to search.

"Ok, wait," Isaac spoke up suddenly, jarring Jenny from her thoughts. "Hold on. What exactly is going on here?"

Everyone, including Jenny, was now staring at Isaac. Isaac was seated at one of the side chairs by the table, a look of genuine confusion painted on his face. Marian and Mark sat at opposite ends of the table while Nate leaned against the wall near Marian, his arms crossed.

"Who exactly is this guy?" Isaac continued, pointing at Mark. "...And how do you know each other? And what the hell do you mean that Hartford is a staging zone? Somebody please explain to me what is going on."

 _Staging zone?_ Jenny thought. She pushed the thoughts of her father to the back of her mind and got up from the couch. Her curiosity had been piqued at the mention of Hartford being some kind of staging zone.

"I'm Mark and yes, I'm a Firefly," Mark said, casting a scathing glance at Jenny as she approached.

"Yeah, I gathered that, but what are you doing here? I wasn't aware the Fireflies were even active around here." Isaac shot back.

"We're not, really. We were keeping an eye on the place, but we were staying well out of sight. There hadn't been much reason for us to focus our efforts here. It was, after all, one of the better zones to be living in."

Jenny cast an I-told-you-so glance at Isaac as she sat down in the chair next to him, hands folded and elbows resting on the table. He snickered back with a toying glance that said, _You're actually siding with a Firefly?_ but she ignored him.

"Every couple months, a two-person team was sent in to scope it out, see if things had changed," Mark continued. "After we got involved in Boston, the scout teams starting reporting subtle changes, but nothing major enough to warrant our attention, particularly since we were focused on Boston and that required everything we had."

"So you admit that you're at fault for the military becoming so abusive," Jenny accused, surprising even herself at how quickly her contempt for the Fireflies returned after the reverie she experienced at the news of her father.

"Jenny!" Marian hissed under her breath, casting a disapproving glance in her direction.

"No," Mark shot back forcefully, the anger burning in his eyes. "The military's nothing but a bunch of self-righteous assholes looking out for themselves. See, Boston's always been a tightly controlled, oppressive zone. Even before the Fireflies were very well known. So, no, it isn't our fault."

"Tsch," Jenny snickered, leaning back and crossing her arms. She couldn't help it. She _really_ didn't trust the Fireflies.

"The military here is just starting to show their true colors," Mark continued.

Mark narrowed his eyes and his glare turned deadly. "Why? You a sympathizer?" he hissed.

"No!" she barked incredulously. "I just happen to trust the Fireflies about as much as I do the military."

Mark glared at her for a few more seconds, no one else daring to speak.

"Anyway," he started once again, "long story short, we hit Boston and we had some success at first, but the military started pushing back. They got extremely aggressive in trying to dig us out. Dozens of Fireflies and supporters have been publicly executed. It's a pretty even game at this point, but with us not having a base of operations in the area, we're losing out. Supplies are running low and most of the citizens are too terrified to fight back."

"Ok, but I still don't see what that has to do with Hartford," Isaac said cautiously, the tension from moments ago just beginning to fade.

"Three weeks ago, we intercepted a message indicating that Hartford was to be used as a staging zone for military supplies."

"Why here?" Isaac asked.

"We're set up for it," Nate cut in. "The center they use for a warehouse is like a fortress. The zone itself is relatively well guarded, although our wall isn't nearly as good as Boston's."

"And it's away from the fighting, but close enough to get emergency supplies in a relatively short time," Marian stated.

"Right," Mark agreed. "And we couldn't let that happen. There's no way we could keep up the fight if they had a ready supply of weapons just waiting to be shipped out at a moment's notice. Initially, we planned to take over the zone and establish a base here, but that would have spread us out and left us fighting on two fronts. So we opted for a more low-profile approach."

"That's where we came in," Nate said proudly, unfolding his arms and stepping forward. He leaned onto the table with both hands.

"Right," Mark said, casting a very brief, appreciative glance at Nate. "Lana and I were stationed out here to monitor the incoming supplies. The four of us worked out an agreement to smuggle out anything of value."

Jenny had noticed that Nate and Marian had been making a lot more drops without her and Isaac in the last few weeks. Though she hadn't thought much of it before now. They weren't trying to keep their activity with Mark secret from her, she knew that. After all, she knew of at least a few other times they'd made drops for the Fireflies. They just never mentioned it because they knew what she thought of the Fireflies and wouldn't want to help anyway. In fact, there had been at least one occasion where Isaac had gone with them and she'd stayed home.

 _That's why he was awake,_ she thought. She'd thought it a little odd that he'd been up to catch her and Isaac sneaking back in after their game of HORSE. He was normally such a sound sleeper and probably wouldn't wake up even if an earthquake shook him out of his bed. He must have been meeting with Mark and Lana to discuss their plans. And that would explain the shadow she'd seen out her window, too. Probably Mark or Lana leaving the hideout.

"At first, we thought maybe the message was outdated. That they'd abandoned the idea," Mark continued. "Shipments were normal. Just enough munitions to restock this zone. Sure they'd significantly tightened up security, but that was nothing unusual really. But then..."

"Then," Nate cut in, "we got yesterday's shipment."

* * *

The next two days, they spent laying low. Waiting. Watching from a distance. Not daring to set foot inside the walls. The third day, Nate took a chance and tried to sneak back into the zone to see how things were. He'd insisted that Marian stay behind to maintain as low a profile as possible and this time, she didn't argue. He had returned safely and undetected, but not without bringing back terrible news. Nate discovered that, as had been expected, Lana was publicly executed for affiliation with Fireflies. Somewhat unexpectedly, however, the military had forced as many citizens as possible to witness the execution. It had been a statement: get involved with the Fireflies and this is your fate.

What was far more troubling was what he discovered when he attempted to retrieve a few supplies from their hideout. The military had found their hideout, but that wasn't what bothered him. Supplies (particularly weapons and ammunition) were highly valuable, but not irreplaceable. Human life, however, was most definitely irreplaceable. The military had taken every single person in their former apartment complex into custody. Young children were taken from their parents, most likely to be put in military schools. Dozens of families torn apart. Anyone 18 or over was thrown into containment cells. They were brutally interrogated. Beaten, tortured, anything the military could think of to get information. Nearly two dozen had already been executed, though most of them Nate could say with 100% certainty were not involved in any way with the Fireflies.

Jenny was shocked. She hadn't thought the military capable of such brutality. Such complete and utter disregard for life. The news had shocked them all, including Mark. The one who took it hardest, though, was Nate. He felt guilty for it all. They all did, really, but for Nate, it was overwhelming. He kept saying that if they hadn't been spotted entering the building or if they'd just gone somewhere else...

For two days, Nate moped around the station, never once leaving. Sometimes he roamed the empty halls, but most of the time he sat on the cold steel bench near the holding cells staring blankly from cell to cell. Marian, Jenny, Isaac, and even Mark had tried on several occasions to break him out of his guilt-ridden depression but to no avail.

On the third day, however, Jenny found Nate up on the roof of the station. He was standing near the edge, arms crossed, staring off towards the zone. Concern immediately crept across her face. Both from what she thought he was about to do, and from the fact that he could very easily be spotted by soldiers patrolling the walls. He wasn't one to be so careless, but he hasn't been himself lately.

"Hey, Nate," she said softly, scanning the walls as she came to stand beside him.

"Hey," he said, not even turning to look at her.

She could not see a single soldier anywhere on the walls visible from where they were standing. The only checkpoint on this side of the wall was near the river some distance away, hidden behind a large decrepit hotel building. Perhaps Nate hadn't been as careless as she initially thought.

"Nice day, huh?" she said after a moment.

The sun was shining brightly in the mid afternoon sky. A cool breeze was blowing, gently tugging at Jenny's hair. It was a nice offset to the blistering heat waves rising from the pavement below and the roof around them.

"Yep," he said, again barely acknowledging her presence.

Another long moment of silence passed between them.

"Ok, look. I've been thinking," Jenny started. "What if you and Mark and all of you, what if you're right about the Fireflies and the military?"

This time Nate did turn to look at her. He wore an expression that almost resembled surprise, peeking out from beneath the guilt.

"It kind of started when Isaac not-so-gently pointed out that my father is a Firefly," she said, a faint smile playing across her face. "But then you brought us the news of what happened after we left the zone."

Nate turned away from her again, guilt and depression returning to his face in full force once more.

"How can anybody do something like that? I don't think the Fireflies have even done anything that horrible."

She shuddered as she once more remembered Nate's account of the atrocities the military had committed.

"No, I don't think so," Nate agreed, "but if we hadn't-"

"It doesn't matter what any of us have done!" Jenny cut in quickly.

Nate looked at her again, this time with anger piercing through the guilt.

"It does matter! We knew what the military was like," he started, waving his hand toward the zone, "and we still made the active decision to endanger everyone's lives by returning to the apartment. We should have just left the zone, waited it out. Or better yet, waited a day or two for them to loosen the security on the warehouse."

His eyes were shining with unshed tears and his breathing was hard and fast. He dropped his hands to his side.

"Nate," Jenny said quietly, grabbing one of his hands. "You can't blame yourself for this. There's no excuse, what-so-ever for what they've done."

"It was my idea," he said, ignoring her. "I was the one who wanted to go in right away. The others, Lana especially, wanted to wait a day. 'We've gotten through tighter security,' I said. And now Lana and everyone else in the zone is paying for my arrogance."

"You can't change anything by ending it all," she said, waving her arm out over the edge of the roof.

"What? No, I...I wasn't-"

She pulled him into a hug before he could finish. He didn't move to return it at first, but after several seconds he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight embrace.

 _I can't lose another father,_ she thought. It was what she wanted to say.

"I can't lose you," is what she'd actually said.

They held onto each other for nearly a minute, before Nate pulled back, smiling at her. A single tear had slid down his cheek, leaving a wet trail behind it.

"Thank you," he said, wiping away the remnants of the rogue tear. "I love you, you know that right?"

"I know," she said smiling playfully back at him.

He ruffled her hair and she pulled back, swatting at his hand. She made a show of being angry as she smoothed out her hair, but Nate had seemingly snapped out of his mood, and for that, she was very happy. Suddenly, his gaze darted to something behind Jenny. His eyes widened and a look of concern spread across his face.

"Oh no," he said as he turned and ran for the door that led into the station.

Jenny turned around to see what had ruined her moment with Nate. There, beyond the railroad tracks that ran behind the station, was a familiar looking man in a green t-shirt and blue jeans. He was running full speed down the shattered street, a pack of three clickers hot on his heels.


	6. The Resistance

Jenny was on her back struggling against the runner that had her pinned. It's teeth were clicking fiercely, eager to pierce her warm, living flesh.

 _BANG!_

The runner's head jerked sideways, following the explosion of blood and gore from the bullet's exit point.

"Thanks," she huffed wearily as she pushed the dead runner off of her.

Isaac reached down a hand to help her up, still clutching his gun tightly.

"Don't mention it," he said, equally out of breath.

Isaac pulled her to her feet as a clicker pushed the man in the green t-shirt past them, slamming him into a row of empty metal shelving. Isaac raised his gun to fire at the clicker, but before he could pull the trigger, Nate came rushing past and slammed into the clicker's mid-section. Nate and the clicker hit the tiled floor hard. He quickly drove his pocket knife into the clicker's neck before it could recover from the tackle. The 6-inch blade bit deep and blood spurted from the wound as the clicker gurgled and groaned. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to kill it. The clicker thrashed violently and flung Nate to the side. Nate scrambled backwards on his hands and feet in a sort of awkward crab-walk. If not for the clicker trying to kill him, it would have been comical.

The clicker regained its feet and went after Nate, knife still protruding from its neck. Just as it made a lunge, Isaac planted two bullets into the side of the creatures deformed head. The clicker jerked sideways slightly, but not enough to cancel its forward momentum. It landed just beside Nate, thrashing for a moment before finally going limp. That was the last of them.

Nate pulled his knife from the clicker's neck and wiped it on the tattered rags that clung to it's fungus covered body. He stood up as he folded the knife and then stuck it back in the front pocket of his jeans.

"Dammit! Lost my pistol," he mumbled under his breath as he scanned the area for the pistol he'd lost in the scuffle.

"Everyone alright?" he asked after a moment of fruitless searching. "Isaac, Jenny...?"

"Yeah, we're fine," Isaac answered for both of them.

"Chris?"

"Yeah, I think so," replied the man in the green t-shirt.

He was holding his left arm. A long gash ran nearly the entire distance between his elbow and his wrist. It didn't look deep. More like a scrape. But it was bleeding profusely. Nate removed his pack but stopped as he glanced around the small bread shop. Concern began to creep its way across his face.

"Where's Marian?" he asked.

"I'm here," she said, suddenly appearing around the end of the shelving unit Chris had been smashed into.

Nate rushed over to her, momentarily forgetting about Chris's arm.

"You alright? You hurt?" he asked grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a quick visual inspection for any bites or other injuries.

"I'm fine," she replied wearily.

"What's this?" Nate asked, grabbing her right arm. She'd somehow managed to tie a strip of cloth around her elbow. It was already saturated with blood.

"It's nothing," she said, gently brushing him off. "Oh my God! Chris, what happened?"

She snatched the pack from Nate's hands and quickly unzipped it as she hurried over to Chris. The bleeding was beginning to slow, but it still needed to be cleaned.

"Scraped my damn arm on the shelf here when that thing tackled me," he explained, tipping his head first at the shelving unit, then pointing at the dead clicker at his feet.

Marian pulled a small strip of cloth and a bottle of rubbing alcohol from Nate's pack. She doused the cloth and began cleaning Chris's arm perhaps a bit more aggressively than was necessary.

"Aagh!" he blurted as Marian touched the alcohol to his wound. "Damn!"

"Sorry," she said, attempting to be a little gentler.

Chris was an older man, perhaps in his 60s, but still pretty fit for his age. He was a bit shorter than Nate, but a little broader in the shoulders. He had roughly shoulder-length dark brown hair, though it was at least half grey. He also had a well kept, trimmed, full-face beard. Also mostly grey. His eyes were a shining green, far younger than the rest of him. He was a fellow smuggler and one whom Nate, Marian, Isaac, and Jenny had worked with on numerous occasions.

He was a good guy and they all got along well. As such, it didn't take much convincing for Nate and Jenny to rally Isaac and Marian to go help him out. Mark opted to stay behind. They'd managed to track him to the small bread shop in the block behind the police station where they were all gathered now. They'd guessed Chris had ducked in here when they turned onto this street just in time to see the three clickers bust down the door. Unfortunately, what Chris apparently hadn't known was that a small group of runners had already taken up residence there.

"So what are you doing out here, anyway?" Nate asked.

"Trying to get the hell out of that nuthouse before the shit really hits the fan," Chris replied through gritted teeth.

"In broad daylight?" Isaac asked.

Marian finished cleaning the wound and simply tossed the rag aside. She grabbed a roll of gauze from the pack and was about to make a bandage.

"No, don't bother," Chris said, pulling his arm away. "It's not that bad. You'd waste more than it's worth."

"You need to keep it clean," Marian insisted.

"No, it's fine. Bleeding's pretty well stopped. No need to waste bandages when you might actually need them for something important."

"Alright, if you say so," she said, stuffing the gauze back into the pack.

She zipped the pack and handed it back to Nate. He grabbed it and slung it back over his shoulders.

"I'll search the bodies," she said, turning away from Nate and pushing past Chris to reach the clicker that had waylaid him.

Their eyes never met, but Jenny caught the suddenly sullen look that crossed Marian's face as she walked past.

"Their attention is focused inward right now," Chris said, answering Isaac's question. "Besides, with that pack of yours, I'm surprised you can sneak out even at night."

That got a slight chuckle out of everyone. Everyone, that is, except Marian. She seemed a little bit too preoccupied with searching the dead infected. She would normally at least listen to their conversations and laugh along with them even if she didn't usually have too much to say.

"Marian? You ok?" Jenny asked.

"Huh?" she started, glancing up briefly. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine."

She had moved on to the runner that had pinned Jenny and pulled a pistol from it's waistband as well as a spare magazine from the pocket of its surprisingly intact jeans. She stood and handed the gun and the ammo to Jenny since she hadn't brought her own pack in the rush to help Chris.

"It's not safe here," she said, turning her attention to another dead runner. "You can talk more back at the station."

Jenny briefly checked the pistol Marian had recovered. It was a different model than hers which meant that the magazines were not interchangeable, but it did use the same rounds. She watched Marian with curious concern as she slung her pack off and stuffed the pistol and ammo into separate pockets of her many-pocketed backpack. Marian seemed distracted. Something was wrong, but Jenny didn't quite know what.

They did a quick scavenge of the bread shop while Chris explained that a group of citizens had formed a resistance and were fighting back. He didn't want any part in that and said he intended to go to Boston where the citizens were not rioting. He apparently feared that Hartford would end up like Pittsburgh. He'd been trying to smuggle out three civilians, but they'd been killed when the Infected attacked them.

They finished up their search without really finding anything useful other than what they retrieved from the runners. They hadn't actually hoped for much since they'd been here at least once before looking for supplies and it had been scarce then. Sometimes it paid to search again, though, because supplies might have been missed on the first search or someone else may have passed through and left something behind. The presence of runners indicated the latter since the last time they'd been here the place had been clean. Unfortunately, they didn't appear to have carried much with them. Jenny did, however, recover the pistol Nate had lost. It had been knocked out of his hands and kicked under one of the shelving units.

They met up near the front of the shop again and started to leave. Jenny suddenly realized that Marian wasn't with the group. She stopped and turned around to see Marian standing once again at the end of the shelving unit where Chris had cut his arm. She had her back to the group and was staring at a dead runner laying a couple aisle's down from where she stood. Her arms hung loosely at her sides. A tiny trickle of blood ran down her left arm, having oozed out from the beneath the crude bandage around her elbow.

"Marian?" Jenny said as she headed back into the shop. "What's wrong?"

Marian turned around. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Mom, are you ok?" Isaac said stepping up beside Jenny.

Nate stepped around Jenny and Isaac as Marian lifted her right arm to show the saturated bandage.

"No," Nate whispered, coming up close to Marian now. He gently grabbed her wrist as he reached for the bandage.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, barely containing a sob.

Nate pulled the bandage down to reveal the injury. On her forearm, just above her elbow was the unmistakable bite mark, still bleeding and already badly inflamed.

"Mom, no!" Isaac sobbed as he dropped to his knees.

Jenny covered her mouth as a tear ran down her cheek.

"No...no, no, no," Nate mumbled again, staring wide-eyed at the wound as if refusing to believe what he was seeing.

"I'm sorry," Marian said again. "I'm not going back with you..."

* * *

Jenny sat up suddenly. She was drenched in a cold sweat and her breathing was short and raspy. She glanced around nervously as her brain slowly came back to reality. She was in the armory of the police station that had served as their home for the last week or so. Even though it was almost pitch black in the basement armory, she could see the familiar outlines of the racks and lockers. She heard the not-so-gentle snoring of Mark from the couch behind her. Just a nightmare. The same nightmare as always. Except this time, Marian took Natalie's place in getting her throat ripped out by the clicker.

She shivered in the coolness of the armory, both from the chill and the lingering memory of her nightmare. She brought her knees up to her chest, wrinkling the ragged, dirty brown sleeping on which she had been sleeping. She wrapped her arms around her knees and laid her head down, letting out a deep sigh.

She sat like that for a moment thinking about Marian. After their tearful good-byes, Marian had given them her pocket knife and all but one cartridge for her pistol. Any other supplies she had were in her pack in the station armory. They'd left the bread shop and said good-bye to Chris as he continued his journey to Boston. They were only a hundred feet or so from the shop when a sudden, single gunshot forced another sob and wave of tears from Jenny. Nate and Isaac kept stern expressions, but she noticed them flinch at the sound.

It had been a long time since she'd lost someone she cared about to the infection. She'd never known her mother. She'd died in child birth. But she'd lost her aunt, Natalie, to the infection. She was very young when it happened, but the image of her aunt's gruesome fate haunted her and shaped the way she made new relationships. She was afraid to ever experience that loss again and it had taken a long time to build the relationship she had with Marian, Nate, and Isaac. And now Marian was gone. Taken by the infection.

She'd thought she lost her father, too. She'd figured the Infected had killed him when they attacked. But he hadn't been killed and now he was working for the Fireflies in a lab in Colorado. Probably working on whatever cure the Fireflies were so sure existed. She didn't know that for sure, of course, and Mark had never actually specified, but the cure was one of the Fireflies' major goals so that's what she assumed.

 _There is no cure,_ she thought angrily.

Those damned Fireflies and their false hopes! This is how the world is now. Why couldn't they just accept that? If they truly believed in a cure, why the hell can't they just keep their noses out of the zones and just work on the cure? No, instead they come in and start blowing shit up and killing off or driving out the military that had kept them protected from the infection. What good would the return of democracy do if the Infected could just come in and tear everything up? Marian would still be alive if not for their rabble-rousing!

Jenny squeezed her eyes shut as a tear slid down the bridge of her nose. She sniffed quietly as she lifted her head and wiped the tear from the end of her nose with the back of her hand. She swiped her hand across her pant leg and sniffed again.

No. That's not right. They needed a strong military presence, sure, but they could accomplish that along with democracy. Couldn't they? Marian died because the military was too oppressive. They'd driven the people mad. Forced their hand into shady dealings to support themselves and their families. They likely would never have gotten into smuggling if the military had been fair in their governance.

Jenny glanced to her right where Isaac slept, intending to wake him up. She needed to talk to someone and he had always been there for her. Always listened. Usually knew how to cheer her up.

Except he wasn't there. His green sleeping bag lay unzipped, the top flap flung open. His gaudy backpack and his pistol lay next to it. She furrowed her brows and flicked her gaze to the stained and ragged mattress beyond where Isaac normally slept. The mattress had previously been one that Mark and Lana shared, but after her capture and execution, Mark resigned himself to the couch and let Nate and Marian use the mattress. Except the mattress lay empty now. It was dark and difficult to see, but there was no silhouette of any sort bulging up from the mattress.

Frowning, Jenny stood up and made her way to the rooftop. She knew that's where they'd be. Isaac and Nate used to go to the roof of their apartment fairly often whenever they needed to think or be alone. In fact, Jenny often had too. She always found it calming to just stare up at the stars or off into the dark, untamed world beyond the wall of the zone.

She reached the top of the stairwell that led to the roof. The door hung ajar, but it always did since the latch was broken. She pulled it fully open and stepped out into the cool night. The sky was clear and even with the faint glow of street lights from the zone to the south, a million stars filled the sky. The moon hung high above, nearly full and shining brightly.

Isaac was seated on a rusty AC unit. Nate was a few feet away, standing next to the edge of the roof with his arms crossed. Both of them had their backs to Jenny, gazing not towards the zone, but to the northwest in the direction of the bread shop.

They apparently hadn't heard the door open because neither of them turned when Jenny stepped onto the rooftop. She quietly approached and stepped around the AC unit Isaac was seated on.

"Hey," she said softly as she took a seat next to him.

Isaac simply looked at her and gave a faint smile. She returned a small smile of her own before he dropped his gaze to the gravel beneath his feet. He let out a sigh and returned to staring out towards the place where Marian had died. Jenny let her own gaze drift out towards the bread shop. Neither spoke for a long moment.

"What if there is a cure?" Isaac asked suddenly.

Jenny didn't immediately respond. She'd wondered the same thing. What if they could have saved Marian?

"That's a pretty big what-if," she said eventually.

Isaac gave a short chuckle, though it sounded more like a cough.

"It is, isn't it?" he said, turning towards Jenny, a slight smile playing on his face once again. "But I refuse to believe that one doesn't exist. I refuse to believe that the Fireflies are fighting for nothing."

"And what are they fighting for?" she asked, too weary to even fake her dislike of the Fireflies.

"Freedom," Nate cut in suddenly. "Hope."

Both Isaac and Jenny looked up to where he was still standing by the edge of the roof. Jenny noticed now that he was holding a faded picture in the hand that rested on top of his crossed arms. It was a picture of Nate and Marian standing shoulder to shoulder with Isaac, who was just three at the time, held between them. Nate had one arm wrapped around Marian's waist and they each had an arm stretched out, showing off their new home. A home they'd purchased, apparently just days before the outbreak. The house had gray-white vinyl siding with darker shutters on the windows and a gray shingled roof. The entry jutted out slightly with a concaved roof and fake stone siding.

"They're fighting against the bullshit that we just let loose," he continued, still not turning to look at them. "And starting tomorrow, me and Isaac are going to help them."

Jenny flashed a look of confusion at Isaac, who was now once again staring off to towards the bread store.

"We're joining the Fireflies," Isaac said without looking at her.

"What?!" she exclaimed, eyes widening in disbelief.

"We're going to join the resistance here in Hartford. Help reclaim the zone from the military's bullshit control," Isaac explained. "Then we're headed for Boston to join up with the Fireflies."

"Why?" Jenny asked, still unwilling to believe what she was hearing.

"Well," Nate started.

He paused to slip the picture he was holding into his back pocket. He then turned around and leaned against the curb at the edge of the roof, crossing his arms once again.

"I figure it's our fault, or more specifically mine, that the military has finally snapped and gone into full on tyranny. But there's a reason they fell into that sort of oppressive, absolute rule in the first place."

Nate paused a moment, apparently waiting for Jenny to respond.

When she didn't, "The authority of the government is corrupt. They hold no value for the average Joe. That was evident by the families they tore apart and those that were falsely tortured or killed when they stormed the apartment looking for us. They only care about themselves. The civilians they are supposed to be protecting and governing are no more than servants, slaves to them. Prisoners. Criminals even. People they need to keep in check."

"They fear the Infected," Isaac cut in, "and they think that anyone who's not them is weak and useless. Anyone who's not them will end up Infected. So they beat us down, hoping to keep us in the zones where they can more easily keep the Infected out."

"Yes, but more than that, power corrupts," Nate corrected. "People originally turned to the military, because they were best equipped to deal with the threat of the infected. But that made them arrogant. The power went to their heads. And, now that the Fireflies are trying to steal their power, they're getting desperate trying to hold onto it."

"So what's to stop the Fireflies from becoming the same thing?" Jenny asked, standing and walking forward to lean her hands against the curb next to Nate.

"They're fighting for a return of democracy. A return of fair government for everyone," Isaac replied.

"That's what they claim," she returned.

She turned around and took a step back towards Isaac.

"But what if that's just a ruse to get more recruits?"

"It might be," Nate replied, "but if that's the case, what have we lost?"

Jenny didn't respond. He was right, of course. The military was certainly corrupt, but were the Fireflies really any better? She wasn't so sure.

She dropped her gaze to the gravel beneath her feet and crossed her arms as she let out a sigh. After a moment, she turned and met Nate's gaze.

"I hope you're right."


End file.
